Reading People Wrong

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There's this guy where I work, he's very high up the company chain, which in my company makes him very powerful and very wealthy. I only point that out so you can estimate the status difference between us. I am worker bee. Well, he used to very often come around and talk to us worker bees and I always thought he was the nicest guy. Now, I know you have to be careful around big bosses anyway, but I just thought he was a down to earth nice guy. Not like I thought he'd take bullet for me or anything.

Recently he has stopped coming around very much at all. And all of a sudden people are saying things to me about him, like he's treacherous and arrogant and cruel. I still see him once in a while and he kids around like he does with everyone, but man how could I have read him so wrong? I have a feeling these people are right though because I've been told it by people high up on the chain and people lower on the chain.

How do you avoid missing stuff like that?

I read people wrong sometimes. When you have a pure heart you can sometimes not recognize it if someone else does not. You can tend to think that people around you are as pure hearted as you are unless they are obvious about it and then it's kind of a surprise when you find out differently.

Maybe being very good at giving impressions to people deliberately is part of why he ended up in such a high position. Maybe he a savant at that.

I reckon I miss-read people at least 90% of the time. Meaning I get it right 10%.

Even with this, I would say two things to you:

1/ Trust your own judgement over that of a third party. They could be just as wrong as you, there could be background between the two people you are unaware of, there could be other predjudices going on causing him to hate the boss.

2/ Getting on the good side of a boss is a good carrier move. Getting on the wrong side of the boss will turn a good job into a disaster. If you like him and get on with him, bonus to you.

Just for the sake of other peoples predjudices alone, I can only recommend following your own heart, and destination. Not somebody elses.

I usually don't listen to what other people have to say about somebody, I make my own judgement. Ask yourself, why would he come down and have a chat with "working bees"? Is it to gain something out of it like informations or is he just being friendly? Why do people say negative things about him? Jealousy?

OMG, you can't hold yourself responsible for seeing it or not.
If it is DECEPTION then the whole point is to make sure that you don't know.

Like lying
or 'advertising'
or faking

Especially if they are talented.

It's tough enough for NTs when they ARE trying to communicate clearly.

Don't assume you are wrong. A person can show different sides of themselves to different people. And/or people can see someone differently based on their own preconceptions. People can have conflicting or contradictory views of a person, and each one can be valid, it doesn't mean any one of those perspectives is wrong.

When other people give me their opinions about someone, I just file it away as potentially useful information, but I don't take it as the truth. I would rather trust my own feelings and instincts about a person than what other people say.

I am not particularly good at reading people. Because of this, I have adopted rules for dealing with people in different situations.

In the working world, I am wary of just about everyone. Why? The workplace is where people trade their time in exchange for money. As such, their motivations can be skewed (and, oftentimes guided by “what’s best for me” – in terms of money, title, assignments, avoiding work, whatever). I have found that, the higher the person is on the food chain, the more likely these motivations will be skewed.

you're lucky you can at least begin to read people, i cannot at all

I think the important thing to do here is to first look at the people making these comments and why they have come to the conclusion they have, for a simple example the laziest workers might think a boss is being cruel because they frequently have to use a little force to get the normal productivity out of them, is the boss a automatically a bad person, of course not. I can't really read people however I try to observe the everything and over time the blurry picture can often begins to take shape a little.